Messier 106

Bildtafel Messierobjekte.jpg
Autor/Urheber:

diverse

, Lizenz: CC-by 3.0
Bildtafel der 110 Messier-Objekte.

M106 - Noirlab2112b.jpg
Autor/Urheber:

Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Acknowledgment:

PI: M.T. Patterson (New Mexico State University)

Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), M. Zamani & D. de Martin, Lizenz: CC BY 4.0
Wide View of Spiral Galaxy Messier 106

Wide View of Spiral Galaxy Messier 106

This image of the spiral galaxy Messier 106, or NGC 4258, was taken with the Nicholas U. Mayall 4-meter Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab. A popular target for amateur astronomers, Messier 106 can also be spotted with a small telescope in the constellation Canes Venatici. This view captures the entire galaxy, detailing the glowing spiral arms, wisps of gas, and dust lanes at the center of Messier 106 as well as the leisurely twisting bands of stars at the galaxy’s outer edges. Two dwarf galaxies also appear in the image: NGC 4248 is to the lower right of Messier 106, and UGC 7356 is the left of Messier 106.

Explore the details of these galaxies and even more background galaxies by diving into the zoomable version of this image.

Credit:

KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

Acknowledgment:

PI: M.T. Patterson (New Mexico State University)

Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), M. Zamani & D. de Martin

Messier 106 visible and infrared composite.jpg
A spiral galaxy with a secret

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope – with a little help from an amateur astronomer – has produced one of the best views yet of nearby spiral galaxy Messier 106. Located a little over 20 million light-years away, practically a neighbour by cosmic standards, Messier 106 is one of the brightest and nearest spiral galaxies to our own.

Despite its appearance, which looks much like countless other galaxies, Messier 106 hides a number of secrets. Thanks to this image, which combines data from Hubble with observations by amateur astronomers Robert Gendler and Jay GaBany, they are revealed as never before.

At its heart, as in most spiral galaxies, is a supermassive black hole, but this one is particularly active. Unlike the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, which pulls in wisps of gas only occasionally, Messier 106’s black hole is actively gobbling up material. As the gas spirals towards the black hole, it heats up and emits powerful radiation. Part of the emission from the centre of Messier 106 is produced by a process that is somewhat similar to that in a laser - although here the process produces bright microwave radiation.^[1]

As well as this microwave emission from Messier 106’s heart, the galaxy has another startling feature - instead of two spiral arms, it appears to have four. Although the second pair of arms can be seen in visible light images as ghostly wisps of gas, as in this image, they are even more prominent in observations made outside of the visible spectrum, such as those using X-ray or radio waves.

Unlike the normal arms, these two extra arms are made up of hot gas rather than stars, and their origin remained unexplained until recently. Astronomers think that these, like the microwave emission from the galactic centre, are caused by the black hole at Messier 106’s heart, and so are a totally different phenomenon from the galaxy’s normal, star-filled arms.

The extra arms appear to be an indirect result of jets of material produced by the violent churning of matter around the black hole. As these jets travel through the galactic matter they disrupt and heat up the surrounding gas, which in turn excites the denser gas in the galactic plane and causes it to glow brightly. This denser gas closer to the centre of the galaxy is tightly-bound, and so the arms appear to be straight. However, the looser disc gas further out is blown above or below the disc in the opposite direction from the jet, so that the gas curves out of the disc — producing the arching red arms seen here.

Despite carrying his name, Messier 106 was neither discovered nor catalogued by the renowned 18th century astronomer Charles Messier. Discovered by his assistant, Pierre Méchain, the galaxy was never added to the catalogue in his lifetime. Along with six other objects discovered but not logged by the pair, Messier 106 was posthumously added to the Messier catalogue in the 20th century.

Amateur astronomer Robert Gendler retrieved archival Hubble images of M 106 to assemble a mosaic of the centre of the galaxy. He then used his own and fellow astrophotographer Jay GaBany’s observations of M 106 to combine with the Hubble data in areas where there was less coverage, and finally, to fill in the holes and gaps where no Hubble data existed.

The centre of the galaxy is composed almost entirely of Hubble data taken by the Advanced Camera for Surveys, Wide Field Camera 3, and Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 detectors. The outer spiral arms are predominantly HST data colourised with ground-based data taken by Gendler’s and GaBany’s 12.5-inch and 20-inch telescopes, located at very dark remote sites in New Mexico, USA.

Gendler was a prizewinner in the recent Hubble’s Hidden Treasures image processing competition. Another prizewinner, André van der Hoeven, entered a different version of Messier 106, combining Hubble and NOAO data.

About the Object:

Name:	M 106
Type:	• Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral
	• Galaxies Images/Videos
Distance: 20 million light years

Colours & filters:

Band	Wavelength	Telescope
Infrared I	814 nm	Hubble Space Telescope ACS
Infrared I	814 nm	Hubble Space Telescope WFC3
Optical H-alpha	656 nm	Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2
Optical V	555 nm	Hubble Space Telescope ACS
Optical V	606 nm	Hubble Space Telescope ACS
Optical V	555 nm	Hubble Space Telescope WFC3
Optical B	435 nm	Hubble Space Telescope ACS

Footnotes

The hidden intricacies of Messier 106 (potm2407a).jpg
(c) ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Glenn, CC BY 4.0
Featured in this new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is Messier 106, also known as NGC 4258. This is a nearby spiral galaxy that resides roughly 23 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici, practically a neighbour by cosmic standards. Messier 106 is one of the brightest and nearest spiral galaxies to our own and two supernovae have been observed in this galaxy in 1981 and 2014.At its heart, as in most spiral galaxies, is a supermassive black hole, but this one is particularly active. Unlike the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, which pulls in wisps of gas only occasionally, Messier 106’s black hole is actively gobbling up material. As the gas spirals towards the black hole, it heats up and emits powerful radiation.This image was captured with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). This observation was taken as part of a dedicated programme to study the galaxy’sActive Galactic Nucleus, the galaxy’s bright central region that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into the black hole. The blue regions in this image reflect stellar distribution throughout the central region of the galaxy. The orange regions indicate warmer dust and the stronger red hues represent colder dust. The teal, green and yellow tones near the centre of the image depict varying gas distributions throughout the region.The galaxy has a remarkable feature – it is known to have two “anomalous” extra arms visible in radio and X-ray wavelengths, rather than in the visible. Unlike the normal arms, these are composed of hot gas instead of stars. Astronomers believe these extra arms result from the black hole’s activity, a feedback effect seen in other galaxies as well. They are likely caused by outflowing material produced by the violent churning of gas around the black hole, creating a phenomenon analogous to a wave crashing up out of the ocean when it hits a rock near the shore.Despite carrying his name, Messier 106 was neither discovered nor catalogued by the renowned 18th century astronomer Charles Messier. Discovered by his assistant, Pierre Méchain, the galaxy was never added to the catalogue in his lifetime. Along with six other objects discovered but not logged by the pair, Messier 106 was posthumously added to the Messier catalogue in the 20th century.[Image Description: The central region of a spiral galaxy. Its core is a small bright point radiating bright, bluish-white light over the scene. The white light is diffuse and many point-like stars in the galaxy (and even background galaxies) can be seen through it. The galaxy’s arms can be seen as broad, swirling streaks of glowing gas and dust, coloured red and orange. Two additional arms are revealed in green.]

Messier 106 by Spitzer.jpg

Messier 106 (NGC 4258) galaxy. Composite of IR, x-ray, radio and visible light view (X-ray - blue, Optical - gold, IR - red, Radio - purple)

Band	Wavelength	Telescope
X-ray	1.5 keV	Chandra ACIS
Optical	440 nm	DSS
Infrared	8.0 µm	Spitzer IRAC
Radio	21.0 cm   VLA

.

NGC 4258GALEX.jpg
Messier 106, NGC 4258

Messier 106 - SPIRE R500µmG350µmB250µm.png
Autor/Urheber: Fabian RRRR (talk) 22:21, 5 October 2012 (UTC) / ESA, Lizenz: CC BY-SA 3.0
Messier 106 observed in the far infrared by Herschel.

Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.

The observations performed with the ESA Herschel Space Observatory (Pilbratt et al. 2010), in particular employing Herschel's large telescope and powerful science instrument SPIRE (Griffin et al. 2010).

Pilbratt, G.L., Riedinger, J.R., Passvogel, T. et al. 2010, A&A, 518, L1

Griffin, M.J., Abergel, A., Abreu, A. et al. 2010, A&A, 518, L3